Hoff Fam­i­ly Arts and Cul­ture: A His­toric Ren­o­va­tion Cre­ates a Hub for Arts, Cul­ture, and History

Art inspires and con­nects us all. And the Hoff Fam­i­ly Arts & Cul­ture Cen­ter is itself a work of art.

Pot­tawat­tamie Arts, Cul­ture & Enter­tain­ment (PACE) seeks to devel­op and pro­mote arts and cul­tur­al activ­i­ties in Coun­cil Bluffs, Iowa. In ear­ly 2020, PACE unveiled the new Hoff Fam­i­ly Arts & Cul­ture Cen­ter, which includes a the­ater, rehearsal areas, gallery, artist stu­dios, class­rooms, a teach­ing kitchen, and more. Two weeks lat­er they were shut down because of the pan­dem­ic. Cur­rent­ly, they are slow­ly open­ing their doors, fol­low their Face­book page for updates here.

At the core of this 95,000-square-foot com­plex is a his­toric build­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly built in 1894 by the Chica­go-based McCormick Har­vest­ing Machine Com­pa­ny, the build­ing was used as a deal­er­ship. It was list­ed on the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places in 2012, and much of the building’s his­to­ry was pre­served in the project by Alley Poyn­er Mac­chi­et­to Archi­tec­ture.

The design embraces the orig­i­nal exposed brick and bridges, old and new, with a mod­ern indus­tri­al vibe that fea­tures tex­tured met­al, wood, and stone surfaces.

PACE was able to open the Hoff Fam­i­ly Arts & Cul­ture Cen­ter with tremen­dous finan­cial sup­port from the com­mu­ni­ty. And they want­ed to rec­og­nize the patrons of the arts with a donor wall that was as dynam­ic as the build­ing itself. Arranged in a series of sizes, depend­ing on the lev­el of giv­ing, the donor wall fea­tures a myr­i­ad of sign options.

“Col­lab­o­rat­ing with our friends at Alley Poyn­er Mac­chi­et­to Archi­tec­ture and the team at PACE we were able to val­ue engi­neer the orig­i­nal design to fit their bud­get, and last­ly, cat­e­go­rize and ver­i­fy each name which is always a detailed process,” says Katie Gunia, sig­nage project manager.

The donor wall is a col­lage of dimen­sion­al let­ters in acrylic, plaques with etch­ing or recessed text paint­ed black, and vinyl let­ter­ing work togeth­er to cre­ate a beau­ti­ful mosa­ic of donor names. The black, white, and wood col­ors of the donor wall coor­di­nate per­fect­ly with the center’s indus­tri­al loft feel.

“Lat­i­tude’s vision matched the com­bi­na­tion of his­toric and new con­struc­tion per­fect­ly,” said Dan­na Kehm, CEO of PACE. ​“Locat­ed in the entrance of our lob­by, the care, inten­tion, typog­ra­phy, and form of the donor wall deliv­ers a pow­er­ful ded­i­ca­tion to our gen­er­ous donors. Vis­i­tors fre­quent­ly claim it is ​‘the best they have ever seen’.” 

There are no bor­ing signs with­in this build­ing ded­i­cat­ed to cel­e­brat­ing the arts. Rout­ed alu­minum let­ters that hang from the ceil­ing greet you at the bar and wel­come you to the gallery on the fourth floor. Etched met­al signs pair with let­ters paint­ed on brick walls. The ADA sig­nage ​‘belongs’ in this space with it’s nat­ur­al wood tones and beau­ti­ful grains.

Even the restroom sig­nage indi­cates that this build­ing is a work of art. ​“This is not your typ­i­cal restroom direc­tion­al sign,” Gunia says. ​“Every ele­ment of this project was thought­ful­ly designed.”